Faith awoke with a jarring thump on rough terrain. With half-closed eyes, she gazed at what her limited vision would allow, and wondered vaguely if she had fallen into a nightmare. Black clouds hung low over the horizon, almost covering the iron-grey sky. Twisted trees and stubby bushes littered the land, while jagged rocks jutted out from hidden canyons and ditches.

She groaned and sat up. Her back was stiff from her landing, and her head ached. She pulled herself the rest of the way up, and stared at the changed world around her. She had landed at the base of a strangely familiar hill. It was rounded at the top and sloped gently down on one side. On other side it jutted out, forming a steep drop of about twenty feet. She began climbing the sloped side, and found herself with a bird's eye view of the ruin that was Wonderland.

Carnage lay around her, and in the far distance she could see a volcano, not even the size of a pencil tip. The only reason that she even noticed it was because it was erupting. Not quite so far off was a forest. She couldn't look at it long. It was different from the rest of Wonderland; it was the only place that was green. But it was a sick, muted green that reeked of decay. Near the hill was a town. She headed to it.

She sat down in despair upon seeing it more closely, believing that it was her - her lateness - that had caused it. Homes were burned to the ground; bits and pieces of their frames were the only semblance of homes that remained. Decomposing bodies were scattered around. Some had been picked clean by the birds and insects, leaving only skeletons. She saw two corpses: a mother, still clutching her baby, their bodies charred and black. Faith clutched a hand to her mouth and turned away, only to find a man impaled on a sharp spear, with ants feeding on his entrails. She groaned and retched, crying. What had happened here?

The hill. She had to get back to the hill, away from all of this. God, the smells, the sights... she couldn't breathe, she didn't want to see. She was gasping for breath, gasping, trying to will herself back into her own world. She staggered and came face-to-face with a corpse, again. For a moment she thought that it was her brother's horrified face staring sightlessly at her, but after that split second it was just another man, his face and throat half-eaten by the maggots that swarmed out from his body.

Faith lost it. She ran, fast as she could to the hill, and when she got there, she climbed, unaware of what she was doing. Exhausted, she slumped down onto her knees and screamed. For a long time she didn't form any coherent syllables, until she finally formed words. Words that echoed her pain, her shock. Her brother's name. Mama. Daddy. Halden. They hurt; hurt worse than seeing all this. But she didn't stop, not until she was hoarse.

"Jeremy. Jeremy," she half-whispered, half sobbed. She staggered to her feet, for no apparent reason other than that her feet were falling asleep. But she could have sworn that she had seen something. Something moving, that may have been alive. She fell going down, but continued on her hands and knees until she could see more clearly.

Perhaps it was blind chance; perhaps it was fate that made the clouds cover the pale, cold moon at that exact instant and prevented her from seeing much further than a few feet in front of her nose. She halted for a moment, hoping that the moonshine would reveal the movement more, but the thick, black clouds showed no signs of waning. She frowned and squinted, and found that if she did, she could see four feet instead of two. And she got a headache from it.

She turned around and started back, but she hadn't gone far when she realised that she was headed towards the village, which was the last place that she wanted to go. But nevertheless, every time she tried to turn back to the hill, she found herself smelling that stench again, stronger, and then she'd see the corpses again, and they were terrible in the darkness. The moon made one's imagination go wild. Darkness terrified Faith; and the corpses and their mutilations seemed much bigger than they were.

In her panic she found herself running toward the village - but she ended up on the hill. She had forgotten that little aspect of Wonderland.

The moon came out again, and she saw that same shadowy figure. Forgetting once again about Wonderland's magic, she hurried over - and found that she could actually reach her destination. "Comes and goes," she muttered to herself, and walked over. When she was about twenty feet away, the moon was covered again, and the land was covered in darkness. Faith couldn't see the figure anymore. "Hello?" she called out. "Hello?"

But there was no answer. As Faith walked closer, though, she could hear unpleasant noises being made. A sucking; wet, slightly guttural sound that jarred her senses. She crept nearer, stone in hand, not wanting to meet this thing unprepared. She did anyway.

The thing leapt at her, and pushed her flat on her back. The stone flew into the air, and it was only by grace of god that it didn't come plummeting down onto her head. Rather, it was about a half-foot away, and the thing that had jumped at her had bounded away. She felt something warm and wet on her shoulder, and put her finger to it. It was sticky and felt totally unnerving. She put her fingers in front of her face and saw something dark on it that looked and smelled like blood. She shuddered, but did not get up.

There was a sudden draft, and she felt along the top of her sweater. It had ripped it- right on the shoulder! She sighed in undisguised annoyance and- her sweater. She was wearing her navy blue sweater and purple dress; the same ones that she'd worn the night of the fire. Black lace up combat boots clothed her feet and legs. She'd been wearing the asylum uniform when she'd left Earth.

She fastened the sweater together as best she could where it mattered, and got up. Now, all that was left was to find that thing and what it was.

After a few minutes of walking, Faith found herself back on the hill. Only this time, there was already someone - or something - there.

Cat walked forward, staying in shadow, and surveyed the girl. Those clothes suited her. He noticed the slash. Oops. Where was that rabbit? he wondered impatiently, and continued his survey.

Now that Faith was out of the asylum and that terrible uniform, he could get a look at her. She was thin from a few years of malnourishment, but the clothes fit well enough. He couldn't have her hitching them up - or having them fall down - in the middle of a battle, could he? His eyes travelled up to her face. Dark eyes, dark hair, pale. The asylum's light hadn't been that deceiving, then. The dark circles under her eyes had lightened considerably, so he put that on the asylum's lighting, too. He stumbled suddenly, and her head flew up immediately, the moonlight highlighting the fear in her eyes.

"Who's there?" Faith called. She sounded scared, even to herself. Well, get over it. It may be a friend or something. Oh, she was exasperated with herself. It was... well, wanting to see what it was, but being too afraid... Why?

The figure stumbled into view. "Cheshire!" she called in surprise. Cat paused and stepped into the light. Faith gasped. This was not the Cheshire Cat that she was used to. He was emaciated; skeletal. He appeared more the rebel soldier than the plump, elegant Cat that he had been. Blood dripped from his lips, and his eyes told a story of running; of being hunted. Of fear.

"Not so loud!" he hissed. "Do you want them to hear you?" His eyes narrowed slightly, and Faith backed away.

"No," she whispered. "What happened to you?"

Cat thought that she meant the blood on his face, and he said simply that he had been eating. She shook her head, indicating that she hadn't meant that.

"I meant that... well, you're so thin... you look like you're being hunted..."

"I've told you many times before; I am being hunted," he said, exasperated. "And I haven't eaten in months until today."

"Sorry," she said quietly. She glanced away from him, gesturing to the ruins. "How do you deal with this...?"

"By staying alive."

"How should I..?"

"Oh, find out yourself. I can't know everything; pretend you're an orphan. Oh that was rude, you are."

Faith turned away, angry and hurt. "Y'know what, Cheshire? I think that-"

"We don't have time for this!" a new voice interrupted. The White Rabbit bounded up, visibly peeved. "If all that you two are going to do is argue like a brood of ninnies, she'll have come here for nothing and we will be roasted on the Queen's own personal spit."

Cat hissed, not at either of them, but at the Queen. "The Queen. The Queen. My lower incisors for the Queen. Destroy that wretched creature," he sneered.

Rabbit glanced at him, then briefly sidelong at Faith. "Of course," he said slowly, "if Faith had come sooner, not only would we have more time to talk, then we could be plucked and boiled, too."

Cat turned to Faith, and asked, "Shall we walk?" Faith nodded. As they went, Cat explained a few things to her.

"You remember the Queen on your last visit, am I correct? Pretty enough, but rather temperamental? Good. Well, she lost any semblance of what one would call "a pretty face" since about a year before the fire. She... changed. Now, she is... indescribably hideous. Let me... hmmm."

He closed his eyes and a grotesque image appeared in Faith's head. Faith's eyes flew open and she shook her head. "That's... ugh!" She rapidly shook her head again. Cat held up a paw and told her to calm down.

"Now, as I was saying, she's different. You will need to journey through all of Wonderland to find a way to defeat her. All of us rebels together can't stop her. That's why we're counting on you. You're Alice's heir, and you alone have the skill necessary to destroy her."

"How did she get like this?" Faith asked him.

"Probably because someone stuck a very long, very sharp pole up her ass," Rabbit answered. Faith started in surprise. Not only had she not heard him coming, but that was, even now, the last thing that she had expected to hear. Cat chuckled softly.

"Yes, we have changed here, Faith. You'll find that many once familiar faces have become... not so familiar anymore. Times have changed, people along with them. Countess is still here, as is the White King. Hatter is here, but Dormy is gone. So are several others."

"Cat, you said that all of you rebels have tried to defeat her but can't. What d'you mean that only I have the skill? That makes no sense. I mean, I'm even afraid of bugs, for crying out loud. And who's them?"

"Then you're going to have fun later on," Cat informed her. He did not say more on the subject, though Faith did press him about it a little. Finally, he told her to shut up and listen to what he had to say.

"Now, you know that there are few you can associate with and even fewer that you can trust. Rabbit and I are some of those few. You'll generally know them when you see them."

"How?" she asked, confused. Cat smiled ironically.

"Because, Faith, they're the ones who won't try to kill you at first sighting."

Faith stared at him for a moment, but roused herself after a moment, frowning. This time, it was she who would not speak more. But Cat did not push, and they fell into awkward silence. They walked on and Faith shuddered, asking herself why she had to go to the village again.

"Because all journeys have a beginning. They all require one. Trite, but true, even here," he said simply. She wondered if he could read her thoughts, because she didn't remember saying it out loud.

"Yes, and they generally require a destination, but no one here seems too keen on telling me where it ends," Faith snapped, though she was afraid that she did not want to know.

"What's going on here!? I'm not seeing any hurrying!"

"Oh come now, it's not as bad as all that. It's just... hard, that's all," Cat told Faith, trying to be reassuring. It didn't really work.

"Where do I start? And what do I do when I get there?" she asked. Cat pointed over to a low tunnel.

"That is the village entrance. You can start there."

Picking her way through the rubble. Jumping over crevices that had just recently formed. Ducking under twisted metal and debris. This and more Faith had to contend with as she travelled over the wasteland that was once Wonderland. She knew that the soldiers had done their work well. There wasn't even a slight chance of survivors in this section of the town. "If they can destroy whole towns, whole villages, what's the chance that one girl, a cat, and a rabbit can do anything? It's ridiculous that they chose me..." and trailed off.

There was a long, low tunnel just off to her right. Ahead of her, the path loomed on. She turned from one to the other, perplexed. If she continued on with the road, there was an old building that was not entirely burned down. It looked a little like a house. Through the tunnel... it seemed to go underground for a short while, then come up over where the carnage was not so bad... it appeared to be the less populated half.

Finally, she decided to explore the house first. The path was long and winding, permanently embedded into the earth from many years of hard use. Towards the sides, deep ruts had been indestructibly pressed into the road, and Faith found it best to stick to the middle. Dead flowers that had once been well-tended, but were now trampled and dry bordered the road.

As she neared the house, she saw a litter of corpses, but some were of an unfamiliar sort. They were men, but they were short and very flat. From a distance they seemed to be cards with heads, arms, and legs. When she got closer, she found that they were. They were the Queen's card guards. Gingerly she stepped over them, noticing that they were all clubs, with the exception of a diamond or two. Even then, the clubs were few in number. The others were all villagers. A young man had died with his weapon still in his hand. His head, unfortunately, was missing.

The iron gates stood closed, but when Faith pushed one of them, it swung open with ease before falling off. She winced. The walkway was brick, and the distant gardens had the look of once being well cared for, though the flowers and hedges were now entangled with weeds. There had been a complete attack on this place, she realised. Patches of rusty red stood out awfully vividly against the mottled green and brown of the gardens.

Suddenly she tripped on a loose brick and fell, shutting her eyes tight against the oncoming brick. She landed with a thud, and as she lay there, images of smoke and stone filled her mind. Her eyes opened wide but they wouldn't go away. When she dared get up from lying on the brick, she felt her stomach turn from the nearby stench. She hadn't seen the corpse.

The house loomed over her, frighteningly big and dark, and Faith began to suffer doubts about going in. Finally, she went.

It took almost all of her strength to push the big double doors open, but the inside surprised her. At first it seemed just a long hallway that branched off a few times. It was perfectly clean, with no sign of any of the horrors outside. There were many doors, and she was a little uncertain as to which door to choose first. Almost by itself, her hand reached towards the first door and pushed in. It wouldn't budge. So she tried the handle.

This time the door swung easily open. The first thing that she noticed was a queer smell that filled the air. It was sick and strangely sweet, and she gagged and coughed as it suddenly overpowered her nostrils. Should she go in another step? May as well. She stepped in, and the first thing that greeted her was that smell, overwhelmingly strong. She recoiled and choked on it, brought the end of her sweater up to her nose, and turned to face the door, trying to block the smell further. Eyes watering, Faith turned back around. The sight that greeted her eyes was nauseating.

It was a rather pretty parlour, with the walls decorated a pale shade of pink that darkened in the shadows that the meagre lights from the lamps didn't hit. The curtains were white with a delicate lace trim, and grey sunlight shone faintly through. They were decorated with slender vines that entwined in and out, with a pink rose dotted here and there. The carpeting was ivory. There was a table in the centre of the room, made of a beautiful combination of glass and wood. The wood formed lion's feet at the end and slowly rose up, and Faith noticed detailed flowers and other things carved into the legs. The couches were the same print as the curtains.

On these couches were the things that were making this smell. The largest, obviously the man, had collapsed across the arm, attempting to shield his wife using his body. Something had slit his shirt up the back, and it had fallen open, exposing the skin. Strange symbols had been carved into his body using a long, blunt knife, which stuck out of his left shoulder blade at an odd angle. In addition to these were many stab and slash marks, and they got especially heavy towards the neck, as if someone had been hacking at it but hadn't succeeded at decapitation.

Underneath him was his wife. She had been grotesquely beheaded; her executor seemed to have broken his blade. The cut was jagged and shards of a strange metal poked into and out of her neck. Faith whirled around, and there was a child hanging from the ceiling by his neck, his entrails spilling out of a gaping hole in his stomach. She shrieked and ran out, hitting the stairs at a full run. She fell and tried to crawl away from the death, trying to find somewhere safe. Where she wouldn't need to see or be seen. "Cat!" she choked out, and he appeared.

"I was thinking that you would have discovered this place, sooner or later."

"What is it? What happened here?" she gasped.

"This was the Mayor Elder's home. He was our strongest ally, until the Queen found out that he was, in fact, a spy. She sent her guards here. The family was completely unaware. He didn't want them to find out about the danger that they were in. He knew that it was coming... he just didn't know when.

"Another of our spies got wind of the oncoming attack, so he rushed to the village. He tried to rouse the villagers. Several came, but it was not nearly enough. None of them survived. It was about the time that Wonderland fell, about seven years ago."

"But they're so fresh..."

"Tell that to the wife's head. It's the only real sign of how much time has passed. The Queen keeps these fresh as a deterrent for anyone seeking solace. Decaying bodies would not have quite as much effect on would-be rebels as fresh corpses, don't you think?"

Faith felt her knees grow weak. These people had been dead... seven years. "Wonderland, where are you?" she asked miserably.

"It's right here," Cat said, arching his back and leering at her.

"No, it can't be... not here. Not this."

"Oh, it's not as bad as all that. If you're caught, your punishment won't be much worse than this."

"Oh, no pressure, right?" Faith snapped.

"Oh there's pressure. You're our last hope."

"Will you stop saying that?!"

"Fine."

With that, he vanished.